1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to gearshift finishers, particularly those suitable for use around the gear selector lever and gear selector plate of automatic transmission (A/T) vehicles.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some vehicles have gear selector levers on their steering columns, particularly some A/T vehicles where the lever may operate a switch that in turn controls the vehicle gearbox remotely via relays or other actuators. However most vehicles, and the vast majority of cars, have a gear selector lever mounted centrally between, or just ahead of, the driver's seat and the adjacent passenger seat.
Whilst some vehicles have a dashboard-mounted gear selector lever, the lever is most commonly mounted on the floor of the vehicle cabin, which expression includes a transmission tunnel or similar structure such as a console raised above the footwells of the cabin. That position corresponds to the typical gearbox location of front-engine, rear-wheel-drive cars that have their engine and gearbox in line with a propeller shaft extending through a transmission tunnel to the rear differential. Whilst rear-wheel-drive cars are now less common than front-wheel-drive cars in which the gearbox is usually on the end of a transversely-mounted engine (i.e. to one side of the engine bay), most gear selector levers remain in a familiar central location within the cabin. This is possible because a gear selector lever need not be connected directly to the gearbox that the lever controls: typically a linkage of cables or, more commonly, rods is used to connect the lever to the gearbox.
The gear selector lever of an A/T vehicle pivots between operational positions that typically include park, reverse, neutral, drive and low gear, known collectively by the abbreviation PRNDL. Movement of the lever takes place within a slot defined by a gear selector plate that surrounds the base of the lever. The gear selector plate may bear indicia such as the letters PRNDL appropriate to the operational positions of the lever. It may also have other functions, such as to support switches for selecting gearbox settings, traction control and so forth.
If the gear selector lever is attached to the gearbox either directly or via a linkage, movement or vibration of the gearbox in use of the vehicle will be transmitted to the lever. There are also substantial manufacturing tolerances in the position of the gear selector lever with respect to its intended location, affected by the alignment of the gearbox and/or linkage with respect to the vehicle. Consequently, the gear selector plate is mounted for movement with the lever so that there is always clearance around the lever in the slot within the plate.
Typically the gear selector plate is accommodated within a hole in a surrounding trim moulding such as a centre console moulding or a dashboard moulding. As the plate and the lever can move with respect to the vehicle structure due to movement or vibration of the gearbox, and as manufacturing tolerances must be taken into account, it follows that the plate can adopt various positions with respect to the surrounding trim moulding. A gap must therefore be left between the gear selector plate and the trim moulding. This raises the need for a finisher to bridge the gap between the plate and the moulding, and the need for the finisher to accommodate movement of the plate within the hole in the moulding.